Shamans Kim

Chapter 14 : The boy without a family

"Are you going to be okay Jungkook?" Jimin asked worriedly.

They had left the path of souls, joined a mountain path where they had met morning hikers before surprising quickly joining the asphalt streets of the city which had led them to the high school.

Jimin had suggested that Jungkook take the bus to spare him because he still seemed shaken by the unbinding of his soul from Seokjin's, but he had refused, preferring to walk at full speed as if he had to purge some negative emotions. Jimin still couldn't tell if it was anger or sadness. Probably a mix of both.

All along the way, he had kept an eye on Jungkook who had fallen into a silence that he had chosen to respect. But arriving in the school hall and seeing people looking at their unlikely duo in amazement and starting to talk about them frantically, Jungkook's face seemed to darken even more and Jimin felt his discomfort.

Strangely for Jungkook, Jimin was much more sensitive in the world of the living than in the magic-filled sanctuary in which he lived part of his time.

"I'm fine, I'm just back in my world, the one where I was forced to come back," Jungkook replied grumpily. 

"But Jungkook, this is your world," Jimin told him kindly, "the one with the electricity and modernity that you like, right?"

Jungkook wasn't so sure anymore. He was sure in any case that he had never felt more alive than at the Sanctuary and that now he had the feeling of being dead inside.

"I would have preferred to have the choice and your world could have become mine too but your brothers kicked me out and Seokjin made it clear: I will never return to the Twilight Sanctuary again so I just have to forget it. Now that I'm back here, I guess nothing connects you and me anymore. You can go meet all your friends. They're waiting for you and wondering what you're doing with a weird guy like me."

He glared at those who were staring at him too intently and they hastened to lower their eyes. Others seemed to wonder if they should help Jimin and keep Jungkook away but the blond boy looked at them reassuringly and smiled, showing them that everything was fine.

And before their amazed eyes, he placed a gentle but firm and friendly hand on Jungkook's shoulder:

"Jungkook, you don't have to worry, I'm staying here and I'll be here with you every day, even if you can no longer return to the sanctuary."

"I'm not worried," Jungkook protested who nevertheless seemed reassured.

Jimin nodded with a smile and added:

"You're my friend, Jungkook, I'm not going to leave you alone from now on."

Surprised to hear that, Jungkook quickly looked back at Jimin again. The first time Jimin called him his "friend" it was in front of Seokjin. And it wasn't sincere, it was to protect him, he knew it. This time however, nothing was bothering Jimin. Did he really consider him a friend? Even if in this world, the one the Kims said he belonged to unlike theirs, he was the person everyone hated?

"Your friends won't accept you hanging out with someone like me, they would rather abandon you," Jungkook replied.

"If my friendship means so little to them, then I'd rather they abandon me than maintaining a fake friendship. As for me, I am not abandoning my friends," Jimin retorted.

Jungkook realized a strange thing. At the sanctuary, alongside his brothers who seemed to take up all the space and leave him none, Jimin seemed insignificant, probably because he was a powerless shaman in a shamanic area where magic was ruling. But here at school, far from his brothers, Jimin appeared to him as a person whose human qualities made him charismatic, even though he had no magic in him.